Starting A Handmade Business Again When You’re Scared to Death (But Doing It Anyway)

There’s a very real kind of fear that comes with starting something new — especially in the handmade world.

Not the cute “nervous excitement” kind of fear people like to romanticize online.

I mean the kind of fear that sits in your chest at 2 a.m. while you wonder if you’re making a terrible financial decision. The kind where you’ve already invested hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars into fabric, batting, zippers, thread, leather straps, shipping supplies, website fees, cameras, lighting, sewing machines, and long hours of your life… all before you’ve even sold a single thing.

Running a handmade product-based business is not for the faint of heart.

And unlike digital products — which I’m deeply grateful for through my other business, Exshaw Quilts — physical products carry a completely different kind of weight.

You are investing financially.
Emotionally.
Physically.

You are cutting fabric at midnight.
Pressing seams until your shoulders ache.
Photographing products between storms because the light finally came out for twenty minutes.
Packing orders.
Making mistakes.
Trying again.
Wondering if people will even care.

And the hardest part?

A lot of us aren’t just “selling products.”

We’re deeply connected to the craft itself.

For me, sewing, quilting, knitting, designing — all of it — is personal. It’s tied to creativity, identity, comfort, storytelling, survival, healing, expression. So when something threatens that connection, it cuts a lot deeper than “business.”

I know that firsthand.

Back in 2022, I started a product-based business selling quilted goods. A huge part of me wishes I had continued building it the way I originally intended. But honestly? I let a really awful situation derail me completely.

Someone copied my work.

And I don’t mean “inspired by.”
I mean copied in a way that shook me deeply.

The handmade community actually started reaching out to me about it before I even fully realized how widespread it had become. People were upset on my behalf. They were angry at the unfairness of it all. I was devastated.

I eventually reached out to her privately, hoping for some kind of respectful conversation creator-to-creator.

Instead, I was met with:
“Stop being so butt hurt about it.”

I still remember reading that and feeling physically sick.

It wasn’t just the copying.
It was the complete lack of care and respect behind it.

People who create with their hands put pieces of themselves into their work. Hours. Thought. Experimentation. Mistakes. Emotion. Memory. Craftsmanship. We don’t just manufacture products — we build them from lived experience.

So yes… having that dismissed so casually felt pretty damn awful.

Only after the community publicly called her out did she apologize and ask to continue following me after I had blocked her.

I declined.

Shortly after that, my Instagram account was taken down. I was told it had been reported.

To this day, I still cannot believe it happened.

I had done nothing wrong except create and, unintentionally, inspire someone—a little too much apparently.

And overnight, I lost the community I had spent years building.

I was left empty-handed and forced to start over from scratch. I was so sick over the whole thing, I retreated to private quilting.

That experience changed the way I approach business forever.

I will never again rely entirely on a single social media platform.

Ever.

And honestly? Losing Instagram ended up pushing me toward something much healthier and more sustainable.

YouTube.

Over time, I’ve grown my channels to nearly 8,500 subscribers combined. Both my knitting channel (M1R KNIT) and quilting tutorials channel (Exshaw Quilts) are monetized now. My quilting tutorials channel reached monetization in less than five months, which still blows my mind considering I started from zero.

And now?

I’ve started another channel for One Trick Pony Goods.

But this one feels different.

Instead of primarily tutorials and patterns, I want this space to feel more like sitting down together over coffee at the cabin while I work on whatever collection is currently taking over my sewing table.

I want to talk openly about:

• running a handmade business

• building collections

• creativity

• rural life

• cabin living

• quilted goods

• ideas that fail

• ideas that work

• burnout

• momentum

• fear

• courage

• all of it

I really just wanted a space where I could share the process behind building One Trick Pony Goods — not just polished finished products.

Because there’s so much happening behind the scenes that nobody talks about enough.

The risk.
The uncertainty.
The emotional attachment.
The constant second-guessing.
The hope.

And despite all of that…

I’m doing it anyway.

I keep thinking about this John Wayne quote:

“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.”

That’s exactly what this feels like.

I have no idea what the future holds for One Trick Pony Goods.

Maybe it becomes wildly successful.
Maybe it grows slowly. (Most likely and realistically).
Maybe I completely pivot somewhere along the way.

I genuinely don’t know.

But what I do know is this:

You cannot predict whether something will succeed.

But you can predict that you’ll never know if you don’t try.

And personally?
I’d rather know than spend the rest of my life wondering.

That’s also a big reason I chose to build One Trick Pony Goods around monthly collections.

I need creativity to stay alive in my work.

I love the freshness of new color palettes, new quilt blocks, new combinations, new ideas. One month might lean heavily into olive greens and soft whites with traditional Sawtooth Stars and Broken Dishes blocks— hello May 2026 Collection. Another collection might explore deep blues, scrappy patchwork, or classic black and cream.

The rotating collections keep things exciting creatively, but they also allow me to experiment without feeling trapped. I think you’ll enjoy a change as well too!

And honestly?

Bag making feeds my creativity in a way I can’t fully explain.

I love the practicality of it.
I love engineering depth (notches) and shapes and proportions.
I love leather straps and rivets and quilted textures.
I love turning traditional quilt blocks into something useful for everyday life.

Pouches.
Boxy makeup bags.
Book sleeves.
E-reader sleeves.
Totes.

YES!!!!

They’re functional objects people genuinely use and carry through their daily lives — and there’s something really special about that to me.

Quilting has always been deeply rooted in usefulness.
And I think One Trick Pony Goods is my way of continuing that tradition in my own voice.

So yes… I’m scared.

But I’m saddling up anyway.

And if you’re building something too — whether it’s a handmade business, a creative dream, or simply the courage to start over again — maybe this is your reminder that fear does not automatically mean stop.

Sometimes it just means what you’re building matters to you.

Until next time,

XO Kim